Tag: factions

The 19th CPC National Congress convened from 18-24 October 2017. As the established norm, a congress has two functions: a political report, and personnel arrangement. Likewise, the congress also makes substantive policy guidelines for the party-state. In this session too, General Secretary Xi Jinping, in his role as ‘core’ leader, put forward important policy guidelines, which was endorsed by the Central Committee. However, the most important is the canonization of Xi Jinping Thought in the party charter alongside Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, which has made Xi the most powerful leader in present-day China. Thus, questioning Xi will mean questioning the CPC!

Xi Jinping Thought – Part of a Continuum

Xi Jinping’s more than three hour-long speech outlined achievements of the last five years of his tenure, and announced that China is entering a ‘new era’, and laid a new guiding ideology as ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ which subsequently was added to the party charter in power.

Since the reform (gaige kaifang), much writings on Chinese politics have dealt with leadership succession in China. Many scholars argue the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is reluctant in undertaking political reforms unlike the economy. People’s democracy, as many of one-party states proclaim, is criticised because of an absence of competitive electoral party system thereby resulting in appointment of ‘rulers’ without sanctioned by the ‘ruled’. Arguably at the macro level, one can see such trepidations and the influence of the party at all levels of government, but at the same time, one cannot deny that the party’s ruling ideology, organization and leadership selection norms have not undergone transformation.